Matryoshka
by Silvicultrix
Summary: Dr. Blight walks around with half a face's worth of chemical burns and a lifetime's worth of anger. To turn away from the need to destroy to feel alive, she decides to try to get rid of the scars, and ends up tangled up in a web of old wounds, both hers and others. What drives someone over the brink of madness, and more importantly, what can bring them back from it, if anything?


**Author's Note:** You can all blame my brother for this. I've been having the kind of writer's block where I couldn't do a drabble series with a gun held to my head and then I sat down with my brother, who writes actual legit books as opposed to my rambling fics. He asked if I had any ideas I'd canned, because sometimes pulling out a canned idea he's working on and working on it for a bit gives him inspiration for his main project. And this it it. This is the fic I had left over in a folder literally labelled 'BadFicIdeas'.

Well with _that_ kind of backstory, this can only end in good. So feel free to leave me feedback explaining how I can shape this blob of words and subplots into something resembling good writing. Thoughts, ideas, feedback, responses, head tilts and questions - I'm open to everything here, people. Have at me.

* * *

Dr. Blight liked to consider herself a fairly composed person, but there was a reason she'd learned to style her hair like she had.

The chemical burns that covered half her face were nothing to brag about. They were the result of an incident she'd rather never discuss, and hadn't, actually, with anyone other than one past doctor. People had turned to stare before she'd combed her hair over, and then she'd still gotten double takes because her hair had been burned off in part, making it too short to cover everything. It had been a slow process to get it to where it was capable of acting as a blackout curtain to her face. During that time she'd learned how to burn people with words just as toxic as chemicals, snap at them before they could get to her, and she gained enough confidence not to react to the looks or the muffled gasps with shame. If anything, what she usually felt was anger. _You don't know what happened_ , she always thought, glaring people down with her uncovered eye. _You have no idea what I've been through._ This went doubly for the doctor she was looking at right now, a man too young to have advice worth listening to. His wide eyes weren't helping.

"You really should have had these treated immediately," Doctor Koval said quietly, brushing her well-maintained defensive wall of hair back with his hand. His pointed features were softened by a concerned voice, somewhat shaggy dark auburn hair, and a small but genuine frwn. "Have you considered going after the license of the doctor who treated you when this happened? This is medical negligence, Barbara."

It was the accent, she told herself, that was charming, just since it was a little rare. Everything else was repulsive. He was just here to research the effects of radiation burns, and hadn't she come in to take both him and this overly-optimistic charity research farce down if there was nothing to be done? _If?_ Blight asked herself. _When_. There was nothing to be done, especially not now, after so long. If he, this specially funded branch of Doctors Without Borders, and the world in general could realize how _stupid_ it was to have hopes like this, maybe they'd quit getting in her way. They needed to learn to face a future with pollution as the norm, not let their little hearts break over tiny non-fatalities like this. He was such a bleeding heart that she wondered how he managed to survive in the world. A sort of flash of irrational anger flared up in her. She'd never had the luxury of hope.

Dr. Blight forced herself to meet his gaze, even if without her hair obscuring it she felt like he was trying to mess with her. _Well, if you're looking for sob stories, you're looking at the wrong patient, pal._ "There was nothing they could do. And I don't need to be coddled. I got over it."

His other hand came up to push her hair back so he could get a better view of the damage as well as the healthy side of her face. The raw human contact was jarring after so long spent alone. With his hands resting on the high of her cheekbones, fingers tangled in her hair, his soft light gray eyes seemed inescapable. "Then why are you here, Barbara?"

"I…" She felt caught, suddenly, the trap sprung without warning. When she'd decided to do this, she had come prepared to battle down a wide-eyed idealist who would cringe away from her. After all, the rest of the world backed off when she spat venom at them. Blight had not been anticipating this strange and strangely young man who looked at her without flinching. Words left her mouth unfiltered: "I wanted to give treatment one last shot."

Immediately, the blonde forced herself to be quiet. She was composed, she was strong, she didn't give a damn about the past or some pipe dream of a better future. Those were luxury emotions for those rich in emotional support and naïveté and she had neither. All her bridges were burned a long time ago. For a moment, though, they simply looked at each other, a silent series of seconds passing between the two. He didn't look pitying. But his hands on her face were making her feel like she was on unsteady ground. She didn't even know what he was making her feel, only that it was foreign to her without necessarily being bad. _This was a mistake,_ she thought, a thought followed by, _I'm glad I came._

Doctor Koval removed his hands; Dr. Blight shook her hair back into place with well practiced ease, glancing up at him. He looked at her seriously. "I can't promise results. But I _can_ promise that I'll do everything I can to help, for as long as you'll let me. I… I know what it's like-"

Anger flared up within her, bright and explosive. Those weren't words she'd ever put up with. "Oh, as if you could possibly know what living with _this_ is like. Spare me the speech, 'Doctor'. I didn't come here to be patronized by some _kid_."

To Koval's credit, he didn't even blink, though his gaze seemed distant for a moment. Dr. Blight was reminded of how a deer's eyes looked when they were focused on a point in the distance. Without a word, he straightened up his papers, attached a few to his clipboard, wrote out a follow up appointment date and held the paper slip out to her. She reached over to grab it and he didn't let go, looking at her with an expression that didn't fit his youth at all, an ancient tiredness turning his warm gray eyes dark and storm colored. For a moment she thought he was going to fire back about his credentials constantly being under fire due to his age. Good, she could work with an argument, she knew how to handle those. What did he expect anyway, running around trying to fix problems people twice his age didn't have answers to when he shouldn't even have graduated college yet? Arrogant men with high IQs were her least favorite people. No matter what his degree and credentials said, he was just a nineteen year old who didn't know anything about the real world.

Instead he just told her, unfaltering, "I'm from Pripyat. My father was a firefighter. You're a doctor in your own field; some research shouldn't be hard for you. I know more about living with this than most of the staff here ever will. I'll see you next week, Barbara."

The blonde made her way through the waiting room of patients with varying burns of their own, brow furrowed. _Pripyat… where do I know that name from…?_ It gnawed at her as she walked, stuffing her hands into the dyed dark magenta denim jacket she'd taken to wearing to replace her trademark pink outfit. Her boots clicked faintly on the sidewalk, echoing the name and letting it bounce around her head.

She felt unsettled for the rest of the day and could not say why.

* * *

Doctor Kostayntyn Koval lacked the power to veto the Planeteers swooping in for a visit, as they answered to no one and the majority of the world's governments waived things like air space laws and flight plans for them, but that didn't mean he had to meet them.

He was acutely aware of the fact that the vast majority of the other doctors expected him to have or want some kind of confrontation with the Russian member of the team. It would have been logical. Ukrainians hadn't had a good time of things under the predominantly Russian-ruled USSR, she was related to a diplomat who was still in circulation of behalf of Russia, and what constituted Ukrainian and Russian territory along the borders was still a hot button for a lot of people. His mother would certainly have some words for any Russian unfortunate enough to have relatives in politics. Koval had not, however, uprooted himself and left everything familiar to get into a verbal fight with someone he'd never met. He was here to do work.

Work that, he noted, they were just disrupting rather than aiding – none of them had any real understanding of the medical work going on here. Radiation and chemical burns and studying the link between exposure to various substances and health problems were a far cry from their normal fare. It would be good PR for them to swing by. What it would not actually be was useful to anyone involved. The Estonian and Danish governments had forked over money for this because they had a level of radiophobia not seen since World War Two. That money was limited and the people who showed up expecting miracles were, unfortunately, limitless in their number as they poured into the Estonian-donated building in this little city near the country's eastern border. Every day he got up at four thirty in the morning and got to bed at around midnight. He held no ethnic prejudice against Linka or any Planeteer, but he would be lying if he said he wasn't bitter five teenagers who lived on a private island and never wanted for money had the gall to 'assess the situation'.

If they patented and sold a single one of their green pieces of technology they could fund this entire operation for a decade off the profits. Koval didn't live in a world of ifs, though, he lived in a world of medicine, human suffering and constant calculation of probability rates. Those were things he could handle. The blatant hypocrisy of the privileged was something he tended not to weep over – he'd been Soviet once, after all. When other doctors volunteered to show the five Planteers around, Koval volunteered to work the East Wing of the facility, at which point he thought he'd managed to dodge the incoming insufferable group for the day.

Fate was not so kind, and he heard a soft female voice say his name, or rather, the Russian variant of it, as he finished changing the bandages on a patient. The East Wing was all recent chemical victims, the kind of people who either showed up with freshly blistered and broken skin of their own volition or were flown in from across Europe by various emergency services. Not all the people here were conscious. Not all that were would make it out alive; he'd really like an explanation for who decided to let someone wander around this part of the building, Planeteer or not.

"Can I help you?" he asked the Russian Planeteer as he ushered her without any subtlety out of the room. He wasn't sure whether to go with any titles or not, but he used his more polite Russian, English being his third language and far from his best. "This area is not open to visitors with the exception of family members."

"You make an exception for law enforcement, yes?" She didn't wait for an answer before continuing. "You see, we are-"

"Not law enforcement or even answerable to any," he finished for her, tone still polite and genial even as his gray eyes took on a silver-toned hue in the fluorescent lights of the East Wing. "You are also offering us nothing in the way of funds for this venture, correct?" Linka was silent. _Of course not; God forbid you at least have the decency to_ _pay_ _for good publicity._

She squared her shoulders. "One of your patients may be a criminal."

"It happens." He shrugged in response as he began walking, pushing some papers back on his clipboard. This evening he was back in the Central part of the building working out-patients. If he was lucky, he might be able to get a meal in around sunset, inbetween Central and Southern shifts. The sheer blasé response he'd given the Wind elemental to her statement seemed to have rooted her to the spot for a few moments, but she caught up to him with a small sprint, and this time he cut her off at the pass. "I took an oath to do no harm. My religious beliefs state the greatest and singular goal of a human being is to reduce the suffering in others. There's no asterisk by that statement that excludes criminals. If Interpol wishes to come in with probable cause and search the building, question the staff or check the records, then they can. Until then, it isn't my job to hand over my patients, legally or morally. If you have a specific individual in mind, contact the Estonian government and Interpol."

"One of the nurses said she came to you for an assessment, Doctor Koval," the blonde said, and he mentally noted _she_ hadn't used polite Russian or titles for him until now. "If that's true, you could help us find her."

"If that's true, it's on the security camera footage, which a police, government or Interpol investigation would have immediate access to. Or you could review the footage yourself."

He went through his mental rolodex of patients who were definitely still wanted somewhere in the world. The list wasn't long, but it was distinguished by a remarkable standoffish quality that each thought would hide their more vulnerable side. _They should try being sweet to people; I think I've got half the staff convinced I don't have a vulnerable side or any other sides to me at all, just a lot of softness and fluff. Oh, what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive, but with time comes great ease as more lies we conceive._ Idly, he wondered where he'd first heard that poem's addendum, though he didn't have to wonder when playing the doe-eyed idealist had started. That had been picked up early on to convince the rigid educational system to let him move up a year, then another, then another. And he looked at Linka with his best big eyed, confused expression, trying to convey to her just how much he didn't get why he was even having this conversation.

She sighed, crossing her arms. "Fine. I had thought perhaps you would have recognized her from the news, but maybe it was a mistake. Surely more than one of your patients has some white hair."

"Some do, yes. It's psychological – well, partly, anyway. Genetics determine if a person gets streaks or goes white all over or simply begins to gray. Doctor Asaji thinks there's a link between certain chemicals and the discoloration. You could try asking her about it if you're looking into chemical burn victims. Doctor Valter handles the West Wing's scheduling, too." He scrunched up his face as if in thought.

"Yes, I will talk to them instead. Have a good day, Doctor Koval."

"Good luck." _You're going to need it if you think I'm handing over Barbara. I recognize Chernobylite burns when I see them, and I can't let her die from them or let any questions of what the effects are go unanswered. Criminal or not, I'd just be cruel to throw her away like this._

 _Especially since she doesn't remember how she **got** them._


End file.
